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Dr. Natanael Costea, Iunie, 2018

Do you have voices in your head? Of course you do, we all do. What are they telling you?

Did you know that no one speaks to you more than you do? Yes, you speak more to yourself than anyone else. What are you telling yourself?

Do you keep reminding yourself of your past failures? Are these echoes of the past still loudly yelling in your head? Would you like to move on?
Would you like to get clarity for today and for the future?

Welcome to Emotional Intelligence 101! Yes, gaining clarity in our thoughts is part of Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence helps you identify emotions, what they are telling you and how to manage them.

The voices that we have in our head trigger emotions of the past that affect and can control our decisions of today for the future.

Now, please don’t feel bad that you have so many things going on in your head. We all do. It’s normal. Learning to deal with them is what is more important.

Understanding your past hurts and failures

Past failures and past hurts are real and they are not to be denied. But they are not to amplified, either.

There must be a lesson in every failure and in every hurt. What did we learn from that? How has that affected us? What life lesson can we apply in the future?

You are who you are today because of what you have gone through. Your story is unique and important and it has made you who you are.

Your past cannot dictate your future unless you allow it!

It’s time to “Fire the liar!” That is, fire the liar in your head that tells you that you cannot move on, that you cannot let go, that you are not good enough.

Stop focusing on all the mess of the past! Switch off Past FM and welcome to Today FM and Future FM!

Dealing with the past

Can you change the past? No. If you could, you would have done it, we all would have done it.

What you can do though is accept it. Yes, it was real and it was there, but it no longer is the current reality.

What is the current reality? You need to spell that out for yourself. You need to draw out the wonderful reality of today and embrace tomorrow.

Forgive yourself! Forgive yourself for everything you have said and done in the past.

Forgive others! Forgive everyone who has hurt or mistreated you. Forgive them! Of course they don’t deserve it. But why should you carry the bitterness and the hurt.
Enough is enough. Free yourself. No more bitterness and resentment. Forgive them.

Ask God to forgive you! Yes, this is important too. You have wronged others and you need to receive that forgiveness.

Ask others to forgive you! If you remember who you have wronged, apologize unreservedly. Please do not say, “If I did something wrong, please forgive me.”
That is not apologizing. Say it as it is and name the wrong, “Please forgive me for talking behind your back. I am so sorry for the hurt I have caused.”

Deal with all that you can of the past, and get ready to move on!

Moving on

Yes, move on!

Live in the present! How? Not by what you are thinking, but by your breathing. Learn to breathe in the present. Embrace what is going in your life in every moment.
Love yourself and love life! Be where you are 100% present.

Embrace the amazing future that is to be explored. Nothing of the past can affect your future, unless you allow it.

Ok, so what do you do with the voices that remind you of your past?

Here’s the recipe.

You do not argue with them, nor do you try to reason with them at all. What you do is simply thank them.

Thank them for reminding you what you have moved from.

‘Thanks for reminding me, that was a wonderful lesson I learnt”. Simple. No arguing, no debating, no engagement.

Let’s say, you hear yourself saying, “Last time you did that you failed miserably”. You say, “Thanks for reminding me of that, I have learnt a valuable lesson”. And do the courageous move.

Gratitude is your greatest weapon in life. With a thankful heart you can let go of the past, enjoy the present and embrace the future.

Thank yourself for what you experienced in the past or for what you have escaped in the past. Yes, everything that happened to you could have been far worse.
So, be grateful for the experience.

With gratitude enjoy every moment of your every day. See the beauty in everything that you experience. Enjoy everything being thankful.
And be so open to the future because it is full of exciting things for you to experience. Yes, new and wonderful emotions, experiences and thrills;
they are all waiting for you on the other side of the next breath.

Fast-forward 30, 40 years and we are still being ‘disciplined’. Our bosses demand discipline from us, our spouses expect it and our children watch us to carbon copy us.

And then we push ourselves as well to be disciplined in everything we do. So, not only are we being disciplined by others, we also want to discipline ourselves, and we hate it!

The only enjoyment of discipline is the occasional fruit of our labor. This can come in the form of a better body look, or a promotion, or a nicer car, or that holiday that we could not afford before.

Soon after that, we realise that we need more discipline to achieve the next goal that is set for us by others, or ourselves. It never ends and it’s painful.

Why do we like discipline?

We like it because we forget what it means. If we can forget what it means then we must learn to forget applying it as well.

Let me remind you what it means, so you can get the picture here.

According to dictionary.com this is what discipline means the following.

Discipline /ˈdisiplin’/ - the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience.

Discipline implies pain, obedience, discomfort, challenge, sweat, long hours, being pushed, and even suffering to correct disobedience. Ouch! And we value it! Our kids don’t but we do!

Why do we value it? Because we believe that by pushing and punishing ourselves we become something that we want to become or achieve the goal we want to achieve.

That may be attractive. But what happens when we get there? What happens when you do get fit or have saved the money you wanted or you have gotten the promotion or the job you wanted? Discipline got you there but will it keep you there?

Well, most likely not. Why? Because it is a negative way of getting a positive result. And that is unsustainable. You cannot live a life of punishing yourself!

Discovering a better way for a life full of joy

What if there is a better other way than discipline to achieve a life full of fulfilment and joy?

Welcome consistency! Consistency conveys much more than discipline and guess what, it is attractive. We are attracted to people who are consistent much more to those who are disciplined.

If discipline says, ‘I will do this (push myself through pain) until I achieve my goal’, consistency says, ‘I am beginning a journey that will take me to a fulfilled life’.

Do you see the difference? One is utterly negative and the other, awesomely attractive.

We are attracted to consistent people, people who we can rely on, people who will always show up for the occasion (on time, too). We admire sport figures who have had careers of consistency like Federer (tennis), Iniesta (football) and Jordan (basketball). They deliver results day in, day out. It is a way of life for them.

You have people in your family or in your circle that are simply that, consistent in every area of life and in everything they do.

What does consistency look like for me?

I have learned from a good friend, Brandon Schaefer that we all have five kinds of capital that we invest in, consistently.

These are spiritual, relational, physical, intellectual and financial.

Let’s take the physical capital. This refers to how much time and energy do we have to invest. If you want to be consistent in the physical capital you need to invest your time and energy in an ongoing way.

For example, what would consistency mean to me in looking after my body when it comes to exercise?

It means that I will jog twice a week, 10km at a time.
It means that I will cycle twice a week, 25-30km at a time.
It means that I will play two football (soccer) games twice a week

This means that I get about one hour’s worth of exercise daily for six days, consistently.

And this is done, week in week out, no matter how I feel or how busy I am. These things become non-negotiable. This is not for a season. I started with some sort of discipline and this moved to consistency. I do not feel that I am being disciplined at all. I love doing it. It is now part of my life and it will carry on.

What does consistency mean in spending time with my three young children and investing in my relational capital?

It means that I have at least one meal with them every day.
It means that every night when I am home with them I bath them, tell them a story and pray with them before bed

My children rely on that. We are people of habit. They loved the reliance they can have on their dad. ‘Dad eats with us. Dad baths us. Dad reads us stories. Dad prays with us.’

Discipline is good only to teach us, to get us started. Learn to forget it quickly and move on to consistency.

Consistency is the one that will keep you going to a sustainable life fulfilment.

What are the areas of your life that require consistency?

Begin now and do not look back. Your future self will thank you for what you are starting today!

Uita motivatia

Dr. Natanael Costea, Iunie, 2018

What motivates you?

How many times have you tried to motivate yourself to do that extra round, to go further, to stay up later, to get up earlier and to work harder? Many times, I am sure. How did you go? How successful were you? Are you still active in what you motivated yourself to do back then?

How many times have others tried to motivate you or you worked hard to motivate others? How is that going? Is it still sustainable day after day, week in week out, month after month and year after year?

It is not, is it?

Motivation only works for a short time. It will let you down and you know that.

The challenge of forgetting

Now, the challenge is to forget it. Easier said than done, right?

Nobody teaches us to forget. Everybody teaches us to remember. From a very young age we are taught how to memorize things and hardly ever are we asked to forget things.

I have not heard of a school or college that teaches you to forget. There may be scope in opening one. There’s my entrepreneur’s mind at work.

So, how can you forget something that you have learnt before and you know it so well?

You cannot simply forget it. What you do is radically transforming.

You replace it with a greater truth.

I have just given you one of my most valuable teaching formula in life. Nobody taught me this. I had to discover this for myself, the hard way, and guess what; you benefit infinitely from it.

The only way you can forget something is to replace it with something greater, and that something greater must be a greater truth.

What you knew before was relatively good for your past but now you are moving to a higher ground, to a higher understanding and to a higher purpose.

Are you excited? You should be! I wish someone taught me this principle in my youth. I would have been so much better off. It’s not too late for me and it’s not too late for you either.

So, what do we replace motivation with? What is a greater truth that will take us to a life of fulfillment, success and joy?

Understanding how motivation works

So, what do we replace motivation with? What is a greater truth that will take us to a life of fulfillment, success and joy?

Well, how does motivation work? Motivation works from the outside in. We get motivated by things that are external to us. This is the same whether we motivate ourselves or we are motivated by others.

Let me explain. If I am motivated to loose weight, I am motivated by external factors such as, looking better, improving relationships and living healthier. That means that the current reality is, I am not happy with the way I look, I do not have great relationships and I am not too healthy.

If on the other hand I went to the doctor and she told me that I must loose weight for health reasons, again the motivation is working from outside, in.

That means that I am not really enjoying the process, I am motivated by a goal or by a threat. The motivation works from the outside in, to change me from the inside out. And that is why it lets you down every time!

Why? Because you rely on your self to do it. Your self is your ego who is fighting for your soul to offer it survival cues. Your ego tells it what to do and by listening to this safety mechanism you will always struggle with being motivated. Your body follows the decisions you make in your soul. And soul refers to your thinking, to your mind, to your will and to your emotions.

But we are not just made of a body and a soul, like animals. We also have a spirit. Now animals do not have spirits. They can only live in the present and cannot think of the future. No matter how much you’ll try to explain to your dog what will happen in the future, he will not get it. They have no spirit and no notion of future.

What about our spirit? Well, our spirit is that part of us that connects us with … yes, with God. You may have various beliefs but that does not change the reality that we all have a spirit. And that spirit needs to be connected to a greater Spirit.

If I ask you to point at yourself right now where do you point? Go on, point at yourself! Look where you are pointing. You are not pointing at your head, are you? No, you are pointing at your heart. So if yourself is in the heart, why do you live in your mind?

In your heart is the center of your being, not in your head. Your heart also has a neuron (brain) just like your head brain. You’re probably familiar with naming it, your gut feeling. Is it not interesting that most of the time your gut feeling is right? Why? Because it had no time to be filtered through your thinking.

Now, what drives your body and your life, your thoughts or your spirit. In other words, if yourself (your true self) is in the spirit, why do you live in your ego driven soul (your head)?

Now, let’s come back to our discussion topic. If we live in our heads, we need constant motivation and we still fail.

Replacing motivation with a greater truth

What is the greater truth that motivation needs to replaced by?

We need inspiration! We need to live an inspired life. Inspiration works in our spirit, from within towards outside. It works from the center of our being to the outside.

Being inspired means you no longer require motivation. Motivation may get you started to live a life of inspiration, but after that inspiration will keep you going.

Let me give you an example. I used to jog to work, about nine kilometers. Now that may seem quite a distance and let me tell you that it is.

When I started it was a massive drag. I tried to motivate myself with all sorts of mind talks, positive talks, quotes from the net, and whatever I could read and think of to get me going.

It did not work. It would take me one hour and fifteen minutes to jog the nine kilometers. I would walk uphill because it felt too hard to run. I would wait at the lights even if they were green (having prayed before that they would be red so I can rest). I would have my head down in sweat and consider the whole journey a burdensome chore. Motivation only led me so far. It did not work.

So, I replaced it with a greater truth. That is, inspiration.

I inspired myself to do it. I chose to let my spirit lead me. I allowed jogging to become a value in my heart, in the deepest part of me. Opening my heart and spirit to this I soon realised how privileged I was to be a able to jog to work.

It was not so much about the future benefits. It was now about enjoying the present experience. I chose to love jogging! I allowed jogging to enter my heart and my spirit and I embraced it by loving it.

What changed? Everything.

The moment that choice was made, to live an inspired life, a revolutionary transformation occurred. To some extent this is emotional intelligence but it is a lot more.

I am not sure if you have noticed that on our logo, for the letter Q we have put a heart. Most Emotional Intelligence professionals believe that positive psychology has to do mainly with the mind. I differ. I believe it has to do just as much with the heart, that is why I have developed the idea of inspiration.

Now, you’ll probably never hear anyone speak much about this. I haven’t either. It was new to me and through the discovery everything changed for me.

In jogging to work I began to love breathing. Yes, that simple early morning crisp breath experience became an enjoyment. I began to smell things I haven’t smelt before. I loved the sunshine, the rain, the wind, and the birds. I began to notice little things along the way and especially people I met. I also loved the exercise. When it became harder uphill I loved the experience. I said to myself, “this is excellent; it’s working; I enjoy the challenge of running uphill; I enjoy the little discomfort and I embrace the experience”.

You may think this is a bit out there. Well, it is.

The result? I ran those nine kilometers non stop for the first time and instead of taking me one hour and fifteen minutes, it only took fifty minutes (I cut down twenty five minutes instantly). It was all in me, no motivation needed. I just has to dig it out.

More so, I loved the experience. I loved jogging and I jogged home that day, too. And it now is part of my life. It’s not a chore. It’s not a drag. I need no motivation whatsoever. Why?

I am inspired to do it. I value it. I love it. I can do this for the rest of my life and I don’t need anyone to pat me on my back or to cheer me on. I have become in tune with myself, through my spirit.

Are you ready for a massive shift?

Choose inspiration and the idea of motivation will remain in a distant past. Live your life by design. Live you life by inspiration in everything you do.

I am sure you have been frustrated by people who cannot make up their mind. They say they’re coming to an event and then something comes up and they let you down.

They embrace, “Will see”, “Will let you know”, “Send me more information”, “I cannot commit right now”. These irritate you to the max.

How true is your “Yes?” Can you say, “Yes” and mean it? Can you stick by it? Or do you overthink the implications of deciding and always keep your options open without committing to anything? Have you ever said “Yes” and worked out how you will do things afterwards?

“Yes” means that you have decided. And that is powerful! Making decisions brings shifts that make things happen. Learning to say “Yes” propels you into confidence in decision-making, and this is a vital emotional intelligence skill to have.